Kenya to run out of HIV supplies from May

Kenya has 1,307,024 adults and 71,433 children currently receiving Anti-Retroviral Therapy.

 

Kenya will run out of US-bought HIV medicines and laboratory supplies from May 2025, a government assessment indicates.

 The evaluation indicates Kenya’s stock of Tenofovir/Lamivudine/Dolutegravir (TLD), one of the most widely used ARVs, will drop from 4.9 months’ supply in January to less than a month’s stock by May.

Thousands of patients risk treatment disruption if there is no urgent intervention. Other ARVs, such as Tenofovir Alafenamide/Lamivudine/Dolutegravir (TAF/3TC/DTG) and Dolutegravir (DTG) 50mg, will also see significant reductions, with stock levels falling to as low as two months supply by May.

This is according to the Brief on the Impact of Executive Order Number 14169 of the United States of America on Re-evaluating and Re-aligning United States Foreign Aid.

It was prepared by the Council of Governors (CoG), the National Syndemic Diseases Control Council (NSDCC), the National Aids and STIs Control Programme (Nascop), and the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa).

 The brief details the troubling impact of the US aid freeze on Kenya, particularly on the supply of life-saving antiretroviral (ARV) drugs and critical HIV testing reagents.

 “The HIV response in Kenya is heavily reliant on external funding with approximately 80 per cent of strategic commodities funded through Overseas Development Assistance. These resources are unpredictable and subject to uncertainties and conditionalities,” the report says.

This was further confirmed last week by Khatra Ali, a board member with the NSDCC and the Director of Health at the Council of Governors.

“The supplies we have will last us for just six months; People want to keep stock because they don’t want to find themselves in a mess,” she said during a consultative meeting with county stakeholders on the sustainability of response to HIV and syndemic diseases, in Naivasha. 

CoG and the three Ministry of Health bodies have now advised the government to ask the Global Fund (another major donor) to urgently send to Kenya the drugs it promised for 2026, to avert stockouts. 

Kenya has approximately 1,378,457 people living with HIV, including 1,307,024 adults and 71,433 children (HIV Estimates, 2024), who are currently receiving Anti-Retroviral Therapy.

“The forecasting and quantification report for  the financial year 2024/2025 is estimated the [total] cost of HIV commodities at Sh28 billion,” the brief says.

 This funding comes from the Global Fund at $47.4m (23.3 per cent); the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) $58.7m (28.8 per cent); and Government of Kenya (20 per cent); with a funding gap of $72.2 million (35.4 per cent), the brief explains. 

Pepfar funds in Kenya are primarily managed by the Usaid, which oversees procurement and distribution of HIV commodities like ARVs, viral load testing kits, and other medical supplies.

Pepfar allocated $58.7m (Sh7.8 billion) to Kenya in October 2024-September 2025 for the procurement of HIV health products, excluding freight and other charges. Nairobi-based Mission for Essential Drugs and Supplies (MEDS) was the contracted local distributor.

 Some of these essential HIV commodities were at various stages of procurement.

 “At the time of writing this brief, no deliveries have been made to the health facilities,” the CoG and Ministry of Health said.

 Laboratory commodities, which are essential for monitoring HIV treatment, are also at risk. The supply of Abbott Alinity Viral Load Kits and Roche Viral Load Tests will be completely depleted by May unless alternative funding is secured. 

These reagents are critical for measuring viral load suppression in HIV patients, a key component of successful treatment.

 The brief recommended more urgent measures to prevent a public health crisis. These include expediting the procurement of three million packs of ARVs through the Global Fund before May 2025. Kemsa was also advised to expedite procurement of 150, 000 doses of ARVs, bought by GoK, that were scheduled to arrive in June this year.

 The brief also recommends the Kenyan government temporarily take over the distribution of ARVs from the Mission for Essential Drugs and Supplies warehouse, at a cost of Sh1.2 billion.

It further recommends alternative funding to support the procurement of laboratory reagents, as the US funding cuts have affected essential diagnostics.

CoG, NSDCC, Kemsa and Nascop warned that failure to act swiftly could reverse gains made in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Kenya. 

“There should be urgent allocation of Sh8.7 billion to avert shortages and stock-outs,” they said. 

UNAIDS has already sounded the alarm, noting that Kenya is the tenth most reliant country on the US for HIV medication.